While looking for info I could use in a pamphlet against anti-Illuminism, I came across Pat Robertson, Illuminism, and the New World Order by S.R. Shearer, a conservative Christian who opposes anti-Illluminism and some other fascist-like trends within the religious right wing. Of particular interest to me was footnote 11 of section II:

The linkage here that Robertson is attempting to make between the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers is critical in the modern day version of the Illuminati Myth; the conjunction is necessary in order to tie the Old World to the New World in the grand scheme of things – and how better to do it than by uniting what most people consider to be the wealthiest family of the Old World to the richest family in the New. All variations of the myth make this linkage; some versions even attempt to paint the Rockefellers as Jews – they were in fact Baptists. The fall back position apparently has been to tie the Rockefellers to Jacob Schiff (a Jew), and then join the Rockefellers to the Rothschilds using Schiff as the linkage – which is precisely what Robertson does here – using Warburg and the Aldrichs as additional ties. All this is straight out of the “Jewish-World Conspiracy.”

For a while now I’ve been suspicious of the claims I’ve been running into about an alleged financial tie between the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds. Supposedly the Rockefellers launched their ventures using money loaned by some Rothschild bank, which supposedly still “owns” the Rockefellers (via debt) and/or owns a large amount of stock in one or more of the Rockefeller family’s banks or oil companies. I now have one more reason to be suspicious of such claims, though I haven’t yet researched them enough to debunk (or confirm) them.

Anyhow, Pat Robertson is a televangelist (“700 Club”), former Presidential candidate (1988), and leader of the Christian Coalition, which, for a while in the 1990’s at least, was the leading religious right wing group. Here’s more stuff about his anti-Illuminism:

Another leading anti-Illuminist is Tim LaHaye, one of the founders of the Moral Majority in the 1970’s and, more recently, author of the best-selling Left Behind series. Like many evangelicals, he’s a premillenialist, in contrast to what now seems to be the rising postmillenial trend of Dominionism.

While looking for more info about the anti-Illuminist beliefs of the above two religious right-wing leaders, I noticed that, among anti-Illuminists, infighting may take the form of rival anti-Illuminist factions accusing each other of being Devil worshipers controlled by the Illuminati. For example, here are some anti-Illuminist accusations against Pat Robertson:

Always be very, very, very careful about how you move your hands. Never, ever, ever allow any of your fingers to bend any further than any of your other fingers. If, for even a millisecond, you ever allow your middle and ring fingers to bend further than your index and little fingers, someone will videotape you “flashing a horned hand sign,” and, on that basis, will accuse you of being a covert “Satanist.” On the other hand, if you ever allow your middle finger to bend less than your other fingers, someone will videotape you “making an obscene gesture.”

Hire several people full-time to do nothing but follow your enemies around with video cameras focussed on your enemies’ fingers. It may take weeks, months, years, or perhaps even decades, but, sooner or later, at least one of your enemies will absent-mindedly fidget or scratch an itch in a manner which, for a brief instant, happens to look like “flashing a horned hand sign.” Capturing this on videotape will definitely be worth the effort.

One would think that any secret society worth its blood-oaths would surely have come up with some new hand-signals by now, rather than continuing to rely on ye olde horned hand. Oh, well.

Now for some scarier, less amusing bashing of Tim LaHaye by anti-Illuminists:

“Left Behind & Tim LaHaye’s Masonic Connections” by James Whisler, on a website with the title “Watch Unto Prayer.” This page starts off with an anti-Wiccan (as well as anti-Satanist) blood libel about the eight “Satanic holidays,” which the Illuminati are alleged to celebrate by performing human sacrifices. LaHaye’s alleged “Masonic” connection is based on his use of a cross-and-crown symbol on one of his books, The Power of the Cross. It just so happens that the cross-and-crown is also used by Masons, among other groups. My guess is that LaHaye’s use of the symbol has nothing to do with Freemasonry but, instead, symbolizes LaHaye’s desire for Christian theocracy. For more about the cross-and-crown and various groups that have used it, see the Wikipedia article on the cross and crown. If indeed the symbol is derived from the Knights Templar, as is sometimes claimed, then, to them, I suspect it would most likely have symbolized their mission to restore Christendom in the Holy Land.

“Occult Symbols on Tim LaHaye’s Books” on a website called “Liberty To The Captives.” This page gripes not just about the Cross and Crown but also the “ringed hexagram” (Jewish star inside a circle) on LaHaye’s Prophecy Study Bible. Here, the “hexagram” is referred to as a “demon trap” and as “the most vile Satanic symbol imaginable.” It happens to be true that the hexagram has been used by occultists, but, to me, this is just another example of a symbol being used by different people to mean different things. My guess is that LaHaye used it to symbolize his support for Israel. Even more likely, perhaps the cover art for Tim LaHaye’s books wasn’t selected by LaHaye himself at all, but by his publisher.

(I’ve avoided linking to the above two pages, but they can easily be found via Google.)

Well, it’s nice to see that we that won’t have a united anti-Illuminist movement anytime soon – probably an impossibility anyway, given how fundamentally rooted anti-Illuminism is in sectarian religious bigotry. But we really don’t need the U.S.A. to be split up into warring religious factions either, and that, alas, is one possible outcome if anti-Illuminism continues to grow amongst both Protestants and Catholics. In any case, it should be clear that the continued growth of anti-Illuminism can only create an all-around uglier, more hate-filled political climate, especially for Jews, Wiccans, atheists, Satanists of course, and other religious minorities, and also for gays.

However, the page on the Illuminati, the NWO, and PCT’s ends with a ridiculously ill-informed defense of the official story of 9/11, by one Richard Morrock. For example, it says that “the South Tower collapsed faster because the plane impacted on a lower floor, and more floors were therefore set on fire.” No, the fires in the South Tower were less severe than the fires in the North Tower. (Most defenders of the official story would claim that the South Tower collapsed sooner because, having been hit at a lower floor, there was more weight pressing down on the impact zone, and because the airplane impact on the South Tower was more off-center, causing more pressure down on the southeast corner.) Unlike nearly all other defenders of the official story, Morrock admits that WTC 7 was demolished with explosives, but says, “Griffin never explores that possibility that No. 7 was demolished because it had been contaminated by the white dust from the nearby North Tower.” Not possible, for two reasons: (1) Rigging up a building with explosives takes longer than several hours and would have been extremely dangerous to do inside a burning building, so it had to have been done before 9/11. (2) Buildings being demolished for reasons of “contamination” aren’t demolished with explosives, lest they cause even more contamination and air pollution. They are taken down slowly, piece by piece, as is now, still, being done with the Deutsche Bank Building at 130 Liberty Street, and with Fiterman Hall at 30 West Broadway. Anyhow, David Ray Griffin is a theologian, not a scientist or engineer, and does not do the best job of presenting the physical evidence arguments regarding 9/11. A much better job is done by Jim Hoffman on his websites, especially 9-11 Research.

As far as I am aware, David Ray Griffin is not a believer in anti-Illuminiism or any similar grand-conspiracy worldview. Hence, by placing a review of a book of his about 9/11 on the page about the Illuminati and “paranoid conspiracy theories,” the Skeptic’s Dictionary site has committed the same category error as Chip Berlet, with his mis-classification of “9/11 conspiracy theories” (a highly misleading term, given that the official story also involves a conspiracy) as a form of “conspiracism” (i.e. a worldview featuring control and coordinated micromanagement of many different facets of world politics and culture by a single generations-old cabal, usually in accordance with a single generations-old master plan).

Back to anti-Illuminism:

I just now came across the Wikipedia article on the Illuminati scare, about the earliest instances of anti-Illuminism on U.S. soil back in the late 1700’s.

One topic I should research more is the popularization of anti-Illuminism via fiction, both within the evangelical Christian subculture and in the world at large. An example within the evangelical Christian sphere is The Illuminati: A Novel by Larry Burkett (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1991), which is mentioned in a list of Christian Apocalyptic Fiction on the Public Eye site.

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In the thread Who is Lyndon H. LaRouche? on the TruthAction message board, Rowan Berkeley said the following about LaRouche’s worldview and the anti-Illuminism of right wing populists like Alex Jones:

I’d like to expand my point about pre-capitalist social forms, because it may sound arcane, but it is the key to this entire style of propaganda, and also tells us something about their ultimate goals.

Liberal political philosophy, despite the name calling around the word ‘liberal’, thrives in the USA to an extent unknown elsewhere. According to liberal philosophy, capitalism as such (complete with private ownership of the means of production, though possibly with a reformed banking system) is the one and only possible embodiment of human freedom. The opposite of this is supposed to be ‘totalitarianism, whether of left or right’, which takes away this mighty and wondrous freedom to accumulate massively, vest one’s profits in a corporation, and proceed to despoil the world.

For a would-be USAian political ‘leader’, to start out by saying that capitalism is not the highest conceivable form of human organisation, but is in fact the problem, is most unwise.

Therefore, what they do is pretend that were it not for the PRE CAPITALIST FORCES IN THE WORLD, USAian capitalism would triumph and bring the millennium. It is easy to pinpoint these forces, because they all involve ritual, fancy dress, and mummery. All one has to deceive people into believing, is that they express real power.

Thus the laroucheans provide the apparent intellectual substance behind the phantasmagoria of alex jones and co, in which the world rulers spend their time dressing up and giving each other bizarre hand signals.

Some UK boards are even worse than the US ones in this respect – full of superstition of the most laughable sort!

The above is a very interesting perspective on what I call anti-Illuminism (belief in “the Illuminati” as an ongoing evil world-controlling conspiracy). I think the motives for anti-Illuminism are a little more complicated, though. Historically, anti-Illuminism first arose as a reactionary force in defense of the pre-capitalist social forms that were threatened by the political ideals associated with the Bavarian Illuminati, such as separation of church and state. And, to this day, a major branch of anti-Illuminism consists of traditionalist Catholics who romanticize the Middle Ages.

[…] Anti-Illuminism, i.e. belief in an ongoing, evil, world-controlling conspiracy of the “Illuminati.” (See my previous posts on The recent growth of anti-Illuminism: Dreadful ideology about the dreaded Illuminati and More about anti-Illuminism.) […]

[…] In other words, the usual blood libel against Pagans, occultists, “Luciferians,” “Satanists,” atheists, humanists, non-Christians in general, and environmentalists. I see this kind of panic-mongering as extremely dangerous, akin to Nazism. […]